The first use of a potter's wheel is unknown; however, some scholars date the use of a potter's wheel to shape moist clay into vessels as early as 6000 BC. Egyptian mythology suggests that the god Chnum formed the first human beings on a potter's wheel. Fragments of pottery made on a potter's wheel have been found in Iraq and dated to as early as 3000 BC. Some say that the verse in the Old Testament book of Isaiah which reads:                “Yet, O LORD, Thou art our Father; we are the clay, and Thou art our Potter; and we all are the work of Thy hand, . . . ”refers to the use of a potter's wheel.        
Prior art potter's wheels are well known by many who have pursued making ceramic objects as a hobby. Specifically, to make a vessel using a potter's wheel, a moist ball of clay or a clay plug is placed on a flat surface called a bat or batterboard. The clay plug is then rotated by the potter's wheel. During the rotation process, the unformed clay plug is centered by the artisan with respect to the rotation of the potter's wheel by applying pressure with one hand on one side of the rotating clay plug and applying pressure with the other hand on top of the rotating clay plug. Alternatively, the unformed clay plug may be pulled up and down until the artisan perceives, by the use of tactile input through the finger tips, that the axis of rotation of the unformed clay plug is aligned with the axis about which the potter's wheel turns.
Despite the thousands of years during which prior art potter's wheels have been used, the manual centering of the unformed rotating clay plug with respect to the rotation of the potter's wheel remains the biggest challenge for beginning and intermediate level potters. Those new to the creation of vessels from a rotating plug of moist clay must continually practice the craft of shaping the clay plug on a turning potter's wheel to develop the proper feel with their thumbs, fingers, and hands to assure proper centering of the unformed rotating clay plug before a quality vessel can be properly shaped.
In recent years, accessories for use with prior art potter's wheels, as described below, have been developed, but none of these accessories directly addresses the difficulty of properly centering the unformed clay plug on a rotating potter's wheel.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,585,240 describes a holding device which is attached to a potter's wheel for trimming the foot of a vessel after the clay plug has been centered and formed by the artisan into a vessel.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,057,384 describes a mechanical device called the Axner Power Arm which attaches to the potter's wheel to provide additional leverage for an artisan when shaping the clay plug.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,689,001 describes a flat interchangeable bat sold by the American Art Clay Co., Inc.
Accordingly, there still remains a need in the art for a system and method which will properly center an unformed plug of moist clay with respect to a potter's wheel without the need to first rotate the clay plug to manually center the clay plug with respect to the potter's wheel before the clay plug is formed into a vessel.